The Scarlet Carapace
by Killaurey
Summary: "Our client is a ghost wolf," Sakura says. "He's a dispossessed king who wants our help to regain his throne." Mission-fic. Kakashi, Sakura.
1. Hijacked

Title: The Scarlet Carapace  
>Chapter 01: Hijacked<br>Rating: T  
>Words: 5,487<br>Summary: "A ghost wolf," Sakura says helpfully. "He's a dispossessed king who wants our help to regain his throne." Mission-fic. Kakashi, Sakura.  
>Notes: Written for the Kakasaku Community's Give Me Some Sugar chat on the DW branch. Oroburos69's prompt was: "A wolf, a ninja, and a medic walk into a bar…" This is part 1 of a projected 4.<p>

* * *

><p>A wolf, a ninja, and a medic walk into a bar and the barmaid stares because while the ninja-a tall man with silver hair and a face mask-is imposing, and the medic-a pink-haired woman in a grimy Konoha hospital uniform-is scowling formidably, it's clear that the wolf is in charge.<p>

She wonders how that happened.

* * *

><p>It happens like this:<p>

* * *

><p>"Kakashi," Sakura says, keeping her voice level through monumental effort, "we're walking in circles."<p>

Kakashi ignores her. Again.

Sakura feels her temper rising and squashes it ruthlessly as she watches Kakashi keep walking without ever acknowledging the fact that she's stopped moving or that she's said anything. They're not due to meet the caravan they're escorting from Ame for another week, so if he wants to walk in circles for a bit, she supposes that's fine but it's… really odd. Even for him.

The forest around them is quiet but for the rustling of leaves in the wind and the soft twittering of birds and other animals. She runs one hand along the bark of the tree she stands under, feeling the mark she'd scored with a kunai into it earlier, back when she'd originally thought they were going around in circles maybe-sorta-accidentally.

Kakashi is out of the sight now and Sakura crosses her arms over her chest. She's not particularly worried, more annoyed, and she can feel his chakra signature (warm and strong) like a pulse against her skin and so she's content, though maybe that's the wrong word, to wait under her tree and see if he comes back again.

Like clockwork, he does.

This time, having ample opportunity to watch him come, she notices the way his eye has gone slightly droopy and lowered. Glassy.

Sakura chews on her lower lip and considers the odds that this is an enemy genjutsu. If it is, she thinks, she can't figure out what's the point. It hasn't affected her perceptions, after all, and there's nothing and no one attacking Kakashi.

He's just... walking in wide circles, in a forest. With her as his witness.

As he disappears out of her sight again, Sakura leans back against the tree, looks up at the wide, inviting branches, and sighs. This would be a lot easier, she decides, if she could just knock him out and cart him, like a sack of potatoes, back to Konoha.

But if it is a genjutsu, or even worse and there's something wrong with his mind, then she knows she can't do that. It could damage him permanently and while she's tempted to punch him hard, right now, just for the aggravation he's causing her, she doesn't want him dead or, well, broken.

The next time he comes sauntering back into her view, she steps out in front of him. He doesn't even slow as he keeps walking and she's absolutely certain that he can't see her because, even back when she'd been younger and he'd been too busy being devoted to Sasuke and dealing with Naruto when Naruto _made_ him take notice, and so he'd never had any time for her, he wouldn't have ignored her like _this_.

She grabs his left forearm and uses her strength, the strength that Tsunade-shishou has taught her to bring out at will, and makes him stop. He keeps trying to keep going, heedless of the bruises he's getting. With one hand, she holds him there, with the other, she swiftly rolls up his sleeve, exposing a pale arm, and presses her fingers to it while focusing her chakra and thinking _kai_.

There's a flash, like a wildfire bound and chained, and before Sakura can even come up with a suitable curse, she's sent flying through the air, like she's nothing more than a child's plaything.

She's surrounded by trees and it's only the matter of when she'll hit one rather than if she'll do so. Sakura reflects that if she'd been a Genin, or even an over-confident Chuunin, then she would have been knocked out by the blow, instead of very momentarily stunned, and would have been unable to recover enough to keep from smashing headlong into a tree or five.

But Sakura is a Jounin and has been for three years and she's tougher than she looks, tougher than most people, except for those who really matter, believe and so when she's sent flying, she manages to turn it into a spin and rolls through the air, controlling her speed rather than being controlled by it and lands lightly on the side of a tree whose trunk is wider than her arms can reach around.

Her eyes are narrowed now because the fact that a _kai _can't get through whatever has got Kakashi (and now she knows that something has got him and it's not just all in her head that he's being weirder than normal) means that she's got trouble to figure out how to solve.

She's worried, sort of, but more for Kakashi and what the… whatever… it is might be doing to him than she is for her own ability to solve the mystery.

With a thrust of her muscles and on silent feet she flings herself up into the branches and begins creeping back towards where Kakashi has been walking in circles. She damps down her chakra so that it doesn't give her away-just in case whatever she's facing can sense chakra-and runs through her options.

Sakura doesn't feel any chakra in the woods except for hers and Kakashi's but after the response to her elementary _kai_she's not inclined to trust what her senses are telling her. When in doubt, she thinks, remembering her lessons, act as if you're in enemy territory and they're far, far more dangerous than you are.

Which, if she follows the unhappy thought logically, means that whatever she's facing is likely way stronger than she is-or, she acknowledges, perhaps just more subtle.

She's not particularly subtle, though she's like a silk thread in comparison to Naruto's blundering about like a brick. Kakashi remains the most subtle member of Team 7-however fragmented and broken it is-and she bites her lip and wonders how easily he got taken over.

And when, she thinks, peering down at him as he walks in his circle. When did the enemy get to him?

To her dismay, Sakura finds that even after reviewing the day, she's not sure.

Once they're on the road, they don't tend to talk much. It's too dangerous, no matter that they're both Jounin, to be so distracted.

She wishes, now, that they hadn't been quite so careful. Sakura suspects that their precautions-and their silence-are what keep her from being able to pin down when Kakashi had been compromised.

She can't do anything rash now. She doesn't dare. That's why she stays up in the safety of the tree, hidden by the leaves, and watches as he walks and walks. He doesn't stop, not once through the long hours that she waits, as darkness falls around them in twilit curtains and the sounds of the woods change as the nocturnal animals awaken and the rest hide to sleep and survive.

Sakura nibbles on her lower lip, a habit she's picked up from Ino, and examines their situation for the umpteenth time. The fact that he's been walking for hours on end doesn't bother her. Not when she knows for a fact that he can run for _days_on end, with only minimal breaks. The walking is an easy pace, compared to that, and isn't something to worry about.

More worrying is that, the only thing she keeps coming back to is that, to get him away from here, she thinks she might _have_to knock him out. She doesn't want to do that. Too risky.

She searches, again, for another presence and feels nothing but Kakashi and herself.

It's frustrating.

Sakura tumbles out of the tree, entirely silent, and lands on equally silent feet. She straightens up, stretching because she's a little stiff after a few hours up in a tree without even the breath of a reason to move.

And, she thinks wryly, there's not much in here that she's been able to sense that could take her out. If whomever has taken over Kakashi is watching her, then perhaps they'll take the bait and attack _her_now since they clearly hadn't done anything to her while she'd waited and watched and thought up in her perch.

Nothing does and Sakura scowls.

There's nothing in the area that she'd spotted earlier that is different. It's tempting to pretend it could be an allergic reaction to something in the woods but, really, what sort of allergy produces results like Kakashi's symptoms as well as fling her away like a paper-weight doll when she tries to break him free? So it can't be an allergy, however comforting that idea would have been if it had been at all plausible.

She tells herself to stop being ridiculous and to figure out a way to rescue Kakashi even though she doesn't know what she's rescuing him from.

Sakura makes her way through the trees, still silent despite the dark that leaves her nearly blind, and makes her way towards Kakashi. He's still walking. If she concentrates, she can follow his progress by feeling his chakra.

Because she hasn't tried it yet, the next time he comes along, she walks the full circle with him, keeping her senses ready and wary to see if she can notice anything along the way that would give her an idea of what's going on.

Nothing does, of course.

As they reach the start (or what she has decided to say is the start) of the circle, Sakura steps out of his path and plants her hands on her hips.

Knocking him out is looking like the better option more and more.

She's pretty sure she can do that and then keep him out of it until she gets him home, to a mind specialist, who can look him over and decide what's actually wrong with him.

Sakura knows she can touch him, after all, so long as she doesn't use her chakra. It's tempting to try and drug him asleep, because that would cause him less damage physically but, well, Sakura doesn't really want to try stabbing a needle into him and the idea of using a contact soporific or spray in the dark doesn't appeal to her.

With the way her day is going, she would wind up drugging herself as well and Sakura can think of a great number of things she would rather be doing than that.

Basically, she thinks, everything else.

But before that, because that's definitely the last straw in dealing with this, she uncrosses her arms and mulls over how ridiculous she's willing to feel. There's one more thing she hasn't tried.

She sighs and tells herself to get over feeling silly and to just get on with it. Sometimes, she thinks, the most obvious thing to do is the solution. It could be the case here.

"Excuse me," she says, her voice feeling shockingly loud in the gloom of dusk despite it being hardly more than a whisper, "but this is sort of a pain. Couldn't you just, like, tell us what you want?"

Silence answers her and she doesn't say anything else because while she's been dealing with the silence all day, this _feels_like a different silence.

Like it's actually listening and thinking about what she said. Expectation prickles along her skin.

Kakashi stops walking. He stands two feet away from her like a particularly attractive statue and Sakura holds her breath because, for all she knows, whatever has Kakashi will make him attack her and that won't be anything but messy for either of them.

At least, she consoles herself, something is happening.

And then the wolf, giant and coming up to her shoulders, melts out of the darkness. She can tell it's a wolf because it glows a pale, back-lit blue that makes her skin look ghostly.

Sakura grits her teeth and tries to remember if she's heard stories about this.

She never pays attention to myths and legends. She can't remember.

Looking at the wolf, Sakura thinks that if they get out of here alive, she's going to start paying more attention.

_::Follow me. ::_

She does, because arguing with a ghost seems futile. Kakashi does because the wolf has control of him.

Come to think of it, maybe that's why she follows too. She can't leave Kakashi alone.

* * *

><p>They walk for what seems like hours but in all honesty, despite the fact that she's trying to keep track of where they are and how far they've come, Sakura isn't sure and doesn't know. It's eerie.<p>

She hasn't seen another animal since the wolf joined them.

The only comfort she can take is the fact that all around her, around Kakashi who still has done nothing but walk like mindless puppet, she can still hear birds rustling through leaves overhead and rodents doing the same on the ground.

But they keep their distance.

Sakura doesn't blame them. If it was possible, she'd do the same.

The wolf, the longer she looks at him, the less distinct he seems to her. She still can't make out details. He's too big to be real. He glows and aside from the two words at the start of their walk, he's been entirely silent.

Creepy, she decides, and wishes that Ino was with her. Ino always has liked ghost stories better, gotten a vicarious thrill out of being scared out of her mind. Or Naruto, who wouldn't think to be scared at all because they'd win no matter what it was, no matter how little it made sense to believe they could. Sakura prefers things to be rational, logica-

"Why is the moon floating in a valley?" she asks, her voice coming out a little strangled, as they come to dip in the path as it abruptly opens up beneath them and the view for miles and miles is nothing but trees sloping down and down. The valley is a deep one and… there's something that looks like the moon hovering, skimming, just over the very tops of the trees.

Close enough to touch, if she climbs a tree.

The very thought makes her shudder.

The wolf's amusement washes over her, a heavy sensation of thick fur brushing her skin and a deep laugh in her mind.

_::It isn't the moon.::_

"Um," Sakura says, "it looks an awful lot like it. Are you sure-?" The wolf flicks one ear at her and she flushes. "Right. Stupid question. What _is _it then?"

_::My home.::_

Because that makes _so_much sense, she thinks and doesn't say. Who was it that said she had no sense of self-perseveration? No tact? "Okay," Sakura says instead, "so you want us to go into your home?"

She's sure she's come up with worse plans at some point. The fact that she can't think of any means nothing. Really.

The wolf ignores her internal flailing-if he even knows about it, and from the continued sense of amusement from him, she thinks he does-and turns to keep walking. Kakashi follows him.

Sakura grinds her teeth, stares harder at the moon (what is it, if it's not a moon?) and then stomps after them. She's caught between a rock and a hard place, knows it, and hates it.

When she gets out of this, she promises herself, she's going to read and memorize every legend, myth and fable she can get her hands on. Just so this doesn't happen again.

Sakura ignores the small part of her that points out reasonably that this might not be covered in any of the above and then what would she do?

Keep going, she tells the doubting bit of herself, because there's really no other choice.

* * *

><p>The walk towards the moon (that apparently isn't the moon but Sakura's been watching the sky now and she hasn't seen the real moon at all and so what else could it be?) is one that's filled with silence on her part, silence on Kakashi's part, and continued amusement on the wolf's part.<p>

She really wants to snap at him and point out that if he wants them to do something for him then laughing at them is probably not the way to go about it right before asking but his jaws could break her in two and Kakashi is still under his mind control and that thought irks her every time she thinks about it.

Which means she dwells on it more and that's just _annoying_.

"What is your home," she says, rather than brood some more, "if it's not a moon? It looks dreadfully like one."

The wolf doesn't answer her, just keeps walking, and does so for long enough that she's gone back to gnawing on her insides with impatience and the need to keep her cool, before he finally says anything.

_::It's an entrance.::_

"Oh, well, that totally clears it up," Sakura snaps, the words slipping out before she can shut her mouth.

To her relief, he seems to find this, too, funny. _::You'll see,:: _he says, and keeps moving.

Sakura wonders if there's a special class or something that he's taken to be so irritating. It must be, she decides, a boy thing. All the boys in her life have managed to make her feel like ripping out her hair at one point or another.

The only difference is, this time, he's not one of _her _boys. He's a stranger and, well, he's not even human.

She tries to decide if it's horrible for her to find that that makes a difference but figures that the fact that he's a glowing, over-sized wolf who has the power to destroy her and Kakashi easily gives her some leeway for being judgmental.

"Are you going to free Kakashi?" she asks, keeping pace easily. There's no need to worry about her footing when the wolf gives off enough light to see by. "I mean, whatever you want us to do, wouldn't it be easier if both of us were awake and able to function fully?"

The wolf ignores her.

Sakura narrows her eyes and tries to decide if she'd have any luck at all in murdering him and fleeing. Maybe she could grab Kakashi and get the hell out of here before the wolf caught them.

Maybe it had only a certain area of influence and couldn't, wouldn't, be able to get past the borders of it. Maybe she could reach the borders before he reached them.

There are too many maybes. Sakura gives up her thoughts of running away and returns to contemplating murder.

How does someone kill a ghost anyway?

This thought, and the resulting lack of answers, leaves her out-of-sorts and yet mentally occupied all the way until-

_::We're here.::_

She looks up and the moon is right in front of them. Glowing with light that she's always heard was reflected from the sun but that's making less and less sense now (because none of this makes sense since she's landed in bizarro-land) and looking more ominous than a moon really ought.

"Great," she says unenthusiastically. She still hasn't figured out how to kill a ghost and run.

There's no door.

"Stupid question," Sakura says, "but how are we getting in?" She's pretty sure, after all, that she's a lot more solid than the ghost is and can't phase through things, if that's how he gets around.

The wolf tilts his head to the sky and gives a long, mournful howl.

A silvery ladder drops from the moon and dangles in front of her. As she stares at it, Kakashi begins climbing it. The wolf looks at her expectantly.

_I want to go home,_ she thinks, and climbs after. _Or at least, for something to make sense._

Sakura doesn't think that's too much to ask but, apparently, the world disagrees with her.

* * *

><p>"I have a headache," Sakura says.<p>

The wolf looks at her. Kakashi doesn't. He just keeps staring blankly at nothing and it disturbs Sakura that she's getting used to that.

She shifts and stretches, leaning back and looking up. The sky looks huge without the moon in it (since they're on it which will never stop being weird) and the stars sparkle brightly against the black backdrop.

"Okay," she says, "so you seriously want us to help you gain your throne back?"

The wolf nods.

"Um," Sakura says, "I don't know if anyone's told you this, but I don't think your kingdom even exists anymore and also you're a ghost wolf and wouldn't that make it hard to rule?"

By this point, several hours after she'd climbed a ladder to the moon, she's pretty sure the wolf is not going to eat her and that he's taken control of Kakashi more for leverage than any real desire to hurt him either. This means that she's more willing to speak her mind.

It's also probably because she's tired but Sakura doesn't trust the wolf enough to ask if she can take a nap.

_::That will not be a problem.:: _The wolf stands and paces around, his huge feet leaving paw prints in the moon dust.

"... how can that possibly not be a problem?"

The wolf's tongue lolls out in a silent laugh. _::My kingdom is populated by those like me. ::_

Sakura considers that and doesn't like what she comes up with. "I'm really not sure," she says, after throttling the urge to make comments about what a horrible idea the fact that there's a whole kingdom of glowing animals capable of possessing people and who might live on the moon out there, "that we're going to be any help. I mean, maybe if you gave Kakashi his mind back. Then we'd both be able to help you though I don't see how. We're sort of... solid... to go to any sort of ghost kingdom."

Unless he makes them become ghosts and Sakura would… rather not. She's pretty sure Kakashi would agree that no, that's not something they want.

_::I will have your vow to help me before releasing the man.::_

From the tone of the wolf's voice, Sakura can tell he's not going to budge on that one. At this point, she's not sure that even if they were both free that they'd be able to exactly get away, so it's not really hard for her to evaluate her options and shrug.

"I guess we can help you," she says, "though before I make a promise, I'd really like to know how."

Because dying still doesn't sound like a good idea to her and that's the only way she knows how to make a ghost.

The wolf stops pacing and looks down at her. She'd be more indignant but the fact is he's standing and huge and she's sitting and so it's more a position thing than an intimidation tactic. _::I need you to retrieve the Scarlet Carapace. It's physical, so you will be able to touch it.::_

"Um." Sakura looks at him. "What does an animal's shell have to do with your kingdom?"

_::It is a depository of power and an entryway into the other realm.::_

That doesn't really sound like something she wants to pick up, in all honesty. Sakura is pretty sure, however, that the wolf doesn't care about a little detail like that and so she grits her teeth over those complaints. It could be worse, she tells herself. It really could be.

At least she doesn't have to become a ghost...

"Wait," Sakura says, "does this mean you were _exiled_? You need to get back _into_ your realm?" Was he really an _evil_wolf who'd been banished for his misdeeds against the proper rulers?

_::My throne was usurped. I am not 'evil'.:: _The wolf sounds grumpy and she forces herself to stop thinking about the ways he could have been kicked out his kingdom.

"Sorry," she says, even though she's a little cranky at him for reading her mind again. "Um, does this mean if we help you that we're going to become targets for whomever you kick out of your kingdom? Because they'll have to know that you got help from someone if you can't get this Scarlet Carapace by yourself."

_::I will not banish anyone,::_ the wolf promises. _::I will kill them.::_

"Oh."

Sakura mulls over that, casting glances at the wolf (who has resumed his pacing) as she thinks and eventually she sighs. Really, there's no way out of it.

"Do you think," she says, "that it'd be a smart idea if I asked 'what's in it for us?'"

_::No.::_

"Alrighty then." Sakura closes her eyes, wonders if anyone is looking for her and Kakashi since they've gone missing, and makes her decision. "We'll help you. Can you please release Kakashi now? And maybe... go away... long enough for me to explain this all to him...?"

_::Go away?::_

"Out of sight," she clarifies. "Because he's probably not going to be happy and I would really hate for you to squash him like a bug just because he's disoriented and hasn't seen sense."

Not that there was any sense in this strange adventure but Sakura was almost getting used to that. Not, she thinks, that she's really had any choice in the matter.

She has the funny feeling that the wolf is laughing at her again. _::All right,::_ he says and turns to go. _::I will release the man once I've... hidden myself from sight.::_

Despite herself, Sakura smiles. "That'd be great, thanks."

The wolf disappears, loping through moon dust until he's gone entirely. His footsteps disappear about fifteen feet from where she's sitting. Sakura holds her breath as Kakashi's eye goes from frighteningly blank to normal and then to shocked as he lurches to his feet and tries to orient himself.

"Hi," Sakura says, once he's managed calm down enough to spot her.

"Sakura," he says, "what's going on? Where are we?"

"On the moon," she says, knowing it sounds ridiculous, "and you might as well sit down. This explanation is going to take a while."

He looks politely incredulous, like he's not sure he's really awake now. Sakura pats the space beside her. "Sit," she repeats, "because we need to cover this before our... new client... gets impatient with our waffling about."

"Our new client?" Kakashi is suspicious and wary and she doesn't blame him one bit.

"A ghost wolf," she says helpfully. "He's a dispossessed king who wants our help to regain his throne."

Kakashi sits.

* * *

><p>"Are you sure," Kakashi says, once she winds down her explanation, "that you ought to have agreed to help him?"<p>

Sakura just looks at him. "I could have left you an empty shell, I suppose. Completely under the control of a ghost and all that implies."

"...Point," he concedes. "I do appreciate that I'm back to normal. But Sakura, you have no idea how far we might have to travel to help him, or how long it's going to take us to do so, and we can't even explain this because no one would believe it. The moment we open our mouths, our explanation is going to look like it's full of holes. Big, leaky ones."

Sakura chews on that. "I know," she says, "but there really wasn't anything else I could do. I can't kill a ghost and arguing with him while he had your mind under his control seemed like a bad idea. He could have squashed you like a melon and even with that, I don't know if I'd be able to do anything against him in revenge."

She contemplates that.

"Except, of course, refuse to help him. Which would probably have seen me going the way of a crushed melon if he was feeling peevish."

"So we're stuck." Far from sounding distressed, Kakashi sounds intrigued. Sakura supposes that the oddness of the situation is getting to him.

It's certainly got to her after all.

"Seems like."

Kakashi considers that carefully and flexes his wrists absently. "Did he say what sort of carapace we're after?" he asks. "Are we looking for something large or something small?"

Er. Sakura blinks at him. "I didn't ask," she confesses. "I was more concerned with getting you free."

He looks touched at her priorities. She thinks. It's still hard to tell with the mask but his visible eye is a little softer. "Well," he says, getting to his feet, "I guess we've made our bed, so we'll have to lay in it. Where is His Majesty anyway?"

"I told him to go away," she explains, "so that you wouldn't attack on sight and end up like a melon."

Kakashi does not argue that her speculation is exactly what would have happened. That tells her that she's right on the money and was perfectly justified in her actions.

"Can you call him back?" Kakashi asks, looking over the barren landscape-it's full of craters and dust and there's a sparkle not twenty feet away to indicate the ladder that leads back to earth-speculatively.

Sakura figures that he's smart enough to know that making a break for it will definitely wind up with a grumpy ghost king on their case. The ladder, with the promise of sweet escape, is just a tease.

"I think he'll come when he's ready," she says. "He was pulling some mind tricks earlier." Kakashi raises one eyebrow at her and she shrugs. "Mind reading," Sakura clarifies, "not just possession."

Kakashi digests that. "Was he a Yamanaka in a past life?"

"Um," Sakura says, "I don't think so. I don't think he was ever human, though that's just a feeling of mine and therefore entirely fallible. Though Ino's family _would _find it funny if they could come back as ghostly animal royalty."

They're both silent for a few seconds.

"I'm going to pretend," Kakashi says eventually, "that this conversation never happened."

"Oh, good," Sakura says, relieved. "That's probably for the best."

_::Have you finished your discussions?:: _Without waiting for an answer, the ghost wolf appears.

Kakashi sits back down. Hard.

Sakura bites her lip and tries not to laugh at him. "We have," she says, while Kakashi stares. "Though we did have a few questions about our… job."

The wolf settles himself in the dust, moving not a speck of it, and stares at the both of them. There's a regal air about him, Sakura thinks, before telling the part of herself that likes trashy books to shut up about seeing virtues where there are none.

After all, she reminds herself, they still don't know why he his throne was stolen. And he's still a giant ghost wolf that's given her no option to refuse to help him.

_::Ask your questions.::_His voice promises no answers.

Sakura glances at Kakashi to see if he wants to take the lead but he's still trying to come to grips with the whole… wolf thing. She swallows hard. "What-What sort of carapace would we be looking for?"

The wolf's tongue lolls out. _::A scarlet one.::_

She narrows her eyes at the wolf while Kakashi just drops his face into his hands and rubs wearily at his temples. "Yes," she says, with the sort of patience working in a hospital has given her. It means she can talk without wanting to scream. Even her thoughts are neatly laid out, just in case he feels like reading them again. "We got that. But what animal? How big is it? Will we have to kill something to get their carapace?"

The ghost wolf tilts his head thoughtfully. _::I don't know,::_ he muses. _::I hadn't even thought of that.::_ The wolf pins them with a speculative glance. _::Your sort would consider that relatively important information?::_

He says that, Sakura thinks, like it's not to him. Despite the fact that he needs it rather badly.

At least, she amends, that's by her own estimation that he does. Maybe it's… different… for ghostly, kingly wolves.

She's struck with a thought. "Excuse me," she says, "but does that mean that the carapace will look differently to us than to you?"

_::It might,::_ the wolf says slowly. _::It might.::_

Kakashi groans.

Sakura resists the urge to moan.

"Right," she says, "do you at least know where we're supposed to start looking?"

The wolf nods.

Sakura tells herself that's a good thing. "Okay," she says, planting her hands on her hips. "Will you know it when you see it?"

He nods again.

_Progress,_ Sakura thinks wearily. _Hurrah._

"So," she says, mustering a smile that feels sickly, "how about we get ourselves closer to where we're supposed to be?"

* * *

><p>Let me know what you think! Thanks for reading!<p> 


	2. Flattened

Title: The Scarlet Carapace  
>Chapter 02: Flattened<br>Rating: T  
>Words: 5,123<br>Summary: "Our client is a ghost wolf," Sakura says. "He's a dispossessed king who wants our help to regain his throne." Mission-fic. Kakashi, Sakura.  
>Notes: Written for the Kakasaku Community's Give Me Some Sugar chat on the DW branch. Oroburos69's prompt was: "A wolf, a ninja, and a medic walk into a bar…" This is part 2 of a projected 4.<p>

* * *

><p>Sakura stares down at the sleepy little town of Tsukuba while absently brushing snow off her shoulders. It's cold out and she's not dressed for it but the wolf is managing to keep them from freezing to death. Sakura prefers not to think too hard about how. The one time she'd asked, a few days ago, had sent the wolf off on a spiel that had lasted six hours and she still doesn't know what all his words had meant.<p>

"What are the odds," she says to Kakashi, who looks disgruntled, "that they've declared us missing-nin yet?"

Kakashi's eyebrow draws down. "Unlikely," he decrees. "We're a day late for our mission," which means they've been with the wolf for over a week and Sakura makes a face at that, "but that could mean anything. They're more likely to declare us MIA than rogue."

She supposes this is a plus.

"Any idea," she ventures, "about how we're going to explain this when we get back?"

It's a question both of them have thought about more than once. It's a question that, so far, they haven't come up with an answer to. Konoha's shinobi are not supposed to just ditch one mission for another one without warning. (Or at all.) Unless it was on orders from the Hokage, of course, but if that had been the case then this would be far less nerve-wracking and they wouldn't be having this conversation besides.

"It would be a lot easier," Kakashi says, "if you could summon slugs."

Sakura rolls her eyes. "We've covered this before-I can't. I never signed the contract. Besides..."

Kakashi's sigh says he knows what's coming. Sakura grimaces. They're both treading the same ground over and over again for lack of more options. She crosses her arms over her chest and says what he expects her to say. "I still don't see why you can't send one of your dogs back to Tsunade-shishou."

"Because they could be intercepted," Kakashi replies, like he's done before. "And if that happens we'll be in worse trouble than if nothing is heard from us."

Sakura's eyes stray over the village again, looking for the wolf. He's told them to wait and like good little captives they do, though they're not happy about it. Still, she thinks, it could be worse. At least we have our own thoughts.

It's a very dim sort of silver lining.

"Do you sense anything?" she asks idly, while stretching out her own chakra feelers.

Chakra signatures assault her senses but they're all the numb, low-level ones that civilians have. Not a single person down in the village, as far as she can tell, has the chakra of someone who is trained to use it, whether that training comes from shinobi lessons or elsewise.

It's almost comforting though she reminds herself, as she continues her careful sweep through the village, that there could be someone who has damped their signature down to the point that she can't spot the differences between it and a civilian's.

She knows, after all, that the wolf is down there and she can't sense him either.

"Nothing," Kakashi says, after a moment and sounding disgusted with everything. "If the Scarlet Carapace is here, then it's not something we can sense."

"Maybe it's not here," Sakura says, pulling her chakra back and sighing. "Maybe it just used to be."

"Or maybe this is a wild goose chase."

Sakura shrugs a little. "Maybe," she admits, "but what are we going to do about it? I'd rather pretend that this has a point than to think we're just wasting our time."

Kakashi muttered something that she didn't bother to try and make out. She got the gist of it.

"Besides," she continues, "he's said that the Carapace is different to his senses and ours. Maybe it's just nothing we can sense."

"Maybe." Kakashi sounds doubtful. "He mentioned it was a power repository, however, and we should be able to sense that."

"We can't sense him," Sakura says, narrowing her eyes at a plume of... something rising from the village. It was too pale to be smoke and too dark to be snow (not that snow rose from the ground but...) and as she watched, it twisted in on itself.

"Is that our wolf?" Kakashi asks, squinting against the snow to peer upwards.

Sakura follows his gaze, part of her wondering if she can tease him later about calling the wolf theirs, and sees nothing out of the ordinary for a moment in the blue sky. Then she swallows a gasp. The ghost wolf is up there, nearly invisible against a cloud, and staring at the plume rising from the village. He's angry.

"Kakashi," Sakura says, "I think we should probably... get away from the village? Before whatever it is that's pissed off the wolf comes looking for us."

As if her words are the trigger, the plume stops rising and twists around so that both she and Kakashi can clearly see that, well, it's a dragon. The only good thing, she thinks, as they both tense, is that the dragon isn't, doesn't, look entirely solid.

That doesn't make a huge difference, she thinks, when stacked against the malevolent ire in the dragon's huge, blank eyes.

"Running might get its attention," Kakashi murmurs.

"Um." Sakura gulps as the dragon writhes and then begins moving towards them. "I think we've already got that," she says, "and I don't know that the wolf can do anything about it since he's up there and, well, growling." Then, plaintively, she asks: "You don't sense anything from the dragon, do you?"

"Not a thing," Kakashi says grimly. "As far as chakra is concerned, it doesn't exist at all."

"Fabulous," Sakura murmurs. "Just what I wanted to hear."

"You asked," Kakashi points out.

She doesn't bother to dignify that with an answer. Sakura contemplates running but Kakashi's relaxed posture shows that he's got no intentions of doing so and while she feels that escaping to regroup and nag the wolf for information about this would be the better part of valour, she knows she can't just leave Kakashi on his own.

That's so not her way as a ninja, as Naruto would say. Kakashi would just think she was trash if she left him and Sakura would think the same.

The dragon's approach is terrifyingly slow. All the more dreadful, Sakura thinks, because they're just standing and waiting for it. It's huge and still growing from the center of the village. Its mass appears to be made out of a billowing whiteness, the same off-white shade as eggshells, and if she squints, Sakura can almost see through it, like the dragon is composed of air swirling hundreds, millions of little particles around.

"How are we supposed to hit that?" she asks dubiously. Sakura doesn't think the dragon has flesh and blood and if it's like the wolf then she doubts she'll even be able to hit it with pure chakra.

Kakashi pushes his hitae-ite up and lets his Sharingan study the dragon for a few seconds before making a sound of utmost disgust and recovering his eye. "I can't get a read on it at all."

"...and you still think fighting it is a good idea?" She thinks running sounds like a better and better one. Sakura's no coward and she's more than willing to fight but this... how are they supposed to fight something that isn't solid and doesn't have chakra?

"I like the idea of fighting it better than running," Kakashi corrects.

"I think getting possessed warped your mind," she tells him flatly.

He has the nerve to laugh at that.

"Possibly," Kakashi admits, sounding unconcerned, which Sakura feels implies a dreadful lack of understanding in their current situation. "But running without engaging the enemy at all-there's no point. We need data and this is one way to get it."

The worst part, Sakura thinks, is that he's right. That doesn't stop her from grumbling about idiots and lack of plans and insubstantial monsters. "Right," she says, once that's out of her system. The dragon is still oh-so-slowly approaching. "Are you taking point, or shall I?"

"I'll do it," Kakashi says promptly.

Her lips curve in a smile. "Thought you'd say that. Wait for it to get closer, and then go all out."

It would offend her, if he was just taking point because she was a girl. Or if he was doing it as a slight to her abilities. But Kakashi isn't like that. If he didn't trust her abilities, she wouldn't be out on missions with him-not now, not when she is a Jounin herself-and Kakashi has never held her back just because she's a girl.

(For other reasons, yes, but not that one.)

In this case, though, she's entirely certain his eagerness for a fight is because they've been stuck with a client, for more than a week, who was a danger to them and whom they could not attack successfully.

This was stress relief.

She feels she can live with that. Especially when, push comes to shove, Sakura doesn't really want to fight it anyway.

He just shakes his head. "I've been doing this longer than you've been alive," he reminds her.

"Try not to get mangled or anything," she tells him. The dragon, since she's not taking her eyes off it, is getting closer. Almost within Kakashi's attack range. Up close, it looks even bigger and she can see things swirling around to form it. "Putting you back together shouldn't be a full time job of mine."

"I make no promises," Kakashi replies. "It all depends on the enemy's moves."

"You could lie and make me feel better."

He laughs again. "Where would the fun in that be?"

Then, before she can splutter about how this isn't fun at all (though it sorta is), he's gone as quick as a flash of lightning, heading for the dragon.

Kakashi, she thinks, is most impressive on the battlefield. Off of it and she remembers and dwells on his faults (of which there are many) and his flaws (which are also numerous) and there are days when the fact that he reads porn in public and is known for doing so is anything but a good thing.

On the battlefield though it's like he's not human and she admires his deadly form even as it looks to be doing absolutely nothing but confusing the dragon.

Kakashi sets of an explosive note and the dragon just sort of tilts its head quizzically as she watches, braced to move in, just in case he actually needs her help.

The wolf lands next to her and she startles, badly, then swallows and tries to hide it. The wolf is still glowing, but she's used to that, and he's still sort of hard to see the details of, but she's also used to that.

What's different is the way he's got his fur bunched up and his teeth bared towards the dragon. He paces in front of her.

"Um," Sakura says, her view of the battle blocked. "I need to see."

He ignores her.

"You know," she says, striving to keep her voice conversational, "I really don't like being ignored. And this standing in front of me smacks a lot like you're protecting the damsel in distress and I'm not that sort of girl."

He ignores her. Again.

"I need to see," she snaps, giving up the pretense of civility, and moving to get around him.

_::Stay where you are,:: _the wolf king snaps, blocking her way again.

"But-"

_::Enough.:: _

It's the same commanding tone that he's used earlier, a week ago and to great effect, but that was before she'd gotten kinda used to him and before Kakashi was in active danger from something that wasn't the ghost king.

That was then.

This is now.

Sakura's eyes narrow and she draws breath to repeat herself one more time but before she can do that-Kakashi begins screaming.

Without thought, without considering the ramifications, Sakura flings herself up into the air, over the wolf (if you can't go around, she remembers Suzume-sensei drilling them, then go over) and into the fray.

She lands on the other side of the wolf and quicker than he can react, runs towards the white dragon. Kakashi is on his knees, holding his head, and still screaming. Sakura can't see any injuries, which she tells herself is a plus, but doesn't let herself feel too relieved.

No one that is really okay would be making a sound like that Sakura knows. Her plan is to grab Kakashi and get the hell out of the area. There's a simplicity to it that appeals to her and then, when Kakashi is better, she promises herself that she'll remind him that she'd been the one to advocate running away in the first place.

When she's less than three yards from the dragon, who is peering down at Kakashi with an expression of mild befuddlement on its face, it seems to realize that she's approaching.

The dragon looks at her and _breathes_.

The world immediately goes thick and white and cold. It's like she's in a storm, so heavy is the breath, so much so that she can barely see, and as Sakura orients herself quickly-it has to be quick because the wolf king is furious and she can still hear him trying to tell her to come back-she can still hear Kakashi screaming.

Fixing the sound in her mind, she flings herself forward, through the blizzarding bits of the dragon, which cut at her skin like a thousand little knives. It's not far now, she tells herself, knowing her body can't take too much of the cold and the cuts combined.

Already she's a mess.

She nearly stumbles over Kakashi, who is still keening, and with a grimace, hoists him up over her shoulders. He doesn't resist her. Sakura thinks, as she turns back the way she came, that that bothers her almost more than anything else about this whole situation.

Then the dragon breathes again and her world splinters and fractures into a million white pieces that know only pain.

* * *

><p>The sky is a dark, inky blue with stars that look like they've been pinned up. Sakura stares up at them and tries to decide if the stars always looked that way or if she's just lost her mind.<p>

She might have, she thinks, because everything still hurts and she doesn't remember much after the dragon made things go really weird. She blinks and there's a giant wolf looking down at her.

_::You,::_ the wolf says while looming over her, _::are incredibly disobedient.::_

Sakura cracks a grin (that hurts too) and forces herself to sit up. The wolf obligingly moves back enough to let her as she takes stock of her injuries and furrows her brow with concentration to smooth them away.

A few minutes later and she feels much better. There are perks to being a medic-nin.

"It's an occupational hazard," she says cheekily, then pauses and glances at the wolf. She can't see Kakashi anywhere. "Where's Kakashi?"

The wolf nods his head over her shoulder and Sakura turns to look. Kakashi is sleeping and she finds herself relaxing a bit. He looks okay, she thinks, getting up to properly survey him. A little paler than he'd been that morning but, really, she can't blame him for that.

"What did the dragon do to him?"

_::Nightmare Breath.::_ The wolf doesn't elaborate and Sakura finds that she doesn't really want him to. She can guess, from that name, what it did. _::He has had many things happen to him, to have been so effected.::_

Sakura lets out a sigh. "That's also an occupational hazard," she says, a bit gloomily. "Is he going to be fine?"

_::With rest.::_

"What _was _the dragon anyway?" she asks, kneeling down by Kakashi and doing a quick diagnostic. Everything scans as normal except for his exhaustion levels.

Kakashi, she thinks, is not getting along very well with this mission.

_::A Guardian,::_ the wolf says slowly. _::It being present here gives me hope that we're close to finding the Scarlet Carapace.::_

Sakura contemplates that dubiously and then rubs her forehead. "That sounds an awful lot like we're going to have to get past it to get to the carapace."

_::It might come to that.::_

She glances at the wolf. "Got any advice as to how? If I recall, you kept yourself well out of that fight."

For a moment she thinks that the wolf is almost... sheepish. _::I was caught off guard,::_ the wolf says, _::and the dragons are not easy foes even for one of my world. I've never heard of one being in your world.::_

Sakura crosses her arms. "So you're saying that you're not sure what we're going to do?"

_::Not in so many words.::_ He paced restlessly, catching starlight in his coat and reflecting it back. _::I need to look into a few things. I'll be gone a few hours.::_

"Um," Sakura says, "I'm guessing that you'd prefer if we didn't try to run away?"

It's weird, she thinks, but she doesn't really want to any more. She doesn't want to fight the dragon, or even see it, ever again but the wolf doesn't scare her and the mission is interesting (though she'd like for Kakashi to stop getting the short end of the stick) and... it's sort of an adventure.

_::You won't.::_

Sakura isn't into the mission enough for the clear confidence in the wolf's voice to fail to rile her though. She grits her teeth and counts to ten and tells herself that it would serve him right if they did.

Even if all that meant would be that he'd just have to drag them back.

She's pretty sure he won't kill them by now. When she looks closely at his fur, he looks a little tattered around the edges and she realizes, with a bit of a shock that the only way they survived is that… he would've had to be the one to have done it, at the risk of himself.

_He's getting fond of us,_ she thinks and then, when her own doubts about that surface, corrects it to _he just needs us_.

But she doesn't really believe that either. It's all muddled in her head. Maybe it's some confusing mixture of the two?

"Yeah," she sighs, "we'll be here."

The wolf nods and doesn't dignify any of her thoughts with a comment on them as he shimmers and fades away. Sakura is torn between being grateful for that and wondering what he made of them at the same time.

"When did everything get confusing?" she asks Kakashi.

Being unconscious, he doesn't answer her.

* * *

><p>The hours pass slowly. She spends some of the time sewing up the rips and tears in her uniform and cleaning herself up in the deep stream she finds not five minutes away from their... well, she can't call it a camp but it's something like that. After setting up jutsu wards around Kakashi and making sure he's comfortable, she takes refuge in the water.<p>

Being clean, she's always felt, makes everything seem a little brighter.

And it gives her something to do while she broods over her actions and mixed up feelings concerning this whole mission. There's a lot to think about and most of it isn't all that great.

As she scrubs her skin free of dried blood and grit-and it feels so good to do so-Sakura muses on the fact that while most of her thoughts aren't exactly positive, they're not as negative as they should be.

After all, she reminds herself, they were basically blackmailed into helping with a job that they barely understood and payment so far seemed to be that they might get out of this with their lives. By all rights, she should be a lot more negative.

But she can't quite manage that for some reason. It's not comfortable, this mission, not even remotely.

Yet she can't help but feel it's _right_.

Which, she acknowledges as she ducks herself under the water to rinse out her hair before tackling it with a comb, is more than a little worrisome. It's weird that she's not more unsettled about all of this, even with Kakashi out of commission for the second time in a week and as she works on her hair she tries to decide why she's so... calm about this.

Is the wolf messing with her head? Has he been? Or is that just taking the easy way out and putting the blame on him for her thought processes?

The problem, she thinks, is that Sakura knows herself and while she's good at faking it, when she's in control of the situation, she's never been what anyone would call actually being calm. Her personality isn't that way.

She tries to decide how she would have reacted a week ago to all of this.

For some reason, she can't.

That bothers her less than it should too.

"What's changed?" she asks herself as she dries off and gathers her things to head back to the camp. Disturbingly, she doesn't have an answer. The wolf still creeps her out if she thinks about it and she would still rather be in Konoha or have someone know where she was-being considered MIA is better than being labelled a missing-nin but she's never wanted to be either-and they still barely know what they're looking for. They've got a name and it's a descriptive name except for the fact that it might not even look like that to their eyes.

So nothing has changed, when she lays it out logically.

And yet, despite the fact that she'd commented about running away to the wolf... Sakura finds he was right.

She won't.

Even though she's pretty sure that a week ago, she'd have taken this chance and fled like a bat out of hell even if it means she'd have had to carry Kakashi the whole way back to Konoha.

Thinking about all of this has only served to make her feel more confused about it and so, when she gets back to camp, Sakura finds she's more than glad to see that Kakashi is awake and sitting up.

His company has got to be better than her thoughts.

"How do you feel?" she asks, her wet hair and changed clothes more than enough evidence for where she's been. Sakura sets her things down and offers Kakashi a canteen of water.

Kakashi takes it and studies it silently for a moment before looking at her. "What happened?" he asks.

"We got our asses handed to us," Sakura says, knowing that's not a real answer.

He snorts a laugh, or what might have been, had he sounded amused. "I figured," he says, "since I don't normally wake up later from the fights I win."

"I can think of a few times you have," she says, because she can't let him get away with saying something like that.

Kakashi just shakes his head. "What happened?" he repeats.

"What do you remember?"

He's quiet for a moment and Sakura finds herself hoping that he doesn't remember the Nightmare Breath and anything that getting caught up in that induced. He doesn't seem like he does, he's acting too normal, but then shinobi are all part actor anyway.

"I couldn't hit it," he says, turning the canteen over in his hands. If it wasn't shut, he'd have spilt in everywhere. "And it seemed amused by that." Kakashi sounds baffled. "Then it looked at me and..."

Sakura swallows a sigh. There's a tension in his voice that tells her he remembers more of what happened next but she's not going to press. They're his nightmares, not hers (though she's certain they share a few) and it wouldn't be a kindness to go prying.

"It breathed on you," she explains, toying with a bit of her still-wet hair. "And you started screaming. I didn't see what happened right then because the wolf got in my way but I got around him and it was like... like fighting a blizzard, one that's razor sharp."

His eyes study her. No doubt, she thinks, he's picking out the new repairs in her uniform.

"I got to you," she says, "and then... then I don't remember. I think the wolf saved us, though he didn't say anything about how." But then, she hadn't asked.

"Where is His Majesty anyway?" Kakashi asks, looking around.

"He thinks that the presence of the dragon is a good thing." Sakura disagrees, especially if they have to get past it again. "That we might be close to where the Carapace is. He's gone to look into it."

"... Why are we still here?" Kakashi asks after a lengthy pause where he raises his eyebrow at her.

"I promised him we wouldn't leave," she says weakly, though it hadn't been much of a promise as an assumption on the wolf's part that had turned out to be right. "And you were still unconscious."

Which was an even more feeble excuse and she knows it and he knows it. Sakura can carry him easily and still be able to book it out of the location.

"Right," he says slowly. "Now really, why?"

She shrugs a little, dropping her hands to her lap, though she keeps her eyes up. "I didn't want to," Sakura admits. "And that's pretty much all there is to it. I want to see this through."

Kakashi's silence remains dubious.

"Oh come on," Sakura says, when it gets to be too much for her to bear, "as if we would have made it anyway. He'd just track us down and then we'd be in _worse_trouble. This way, we're more like partners than captives."

"He blackmailed us into this," Kakashi says, something indefinable in his voice.

"Everyone has their faults," she retorts. "You read porn in public, he blackmails ninja into jobs for him."

Kakashi laughs for real this time. "If that's the case," he drawls, "then how can I possibly hold his business methods against him?"

Sakura finds her lips twitching. "You're a jerk," she says. "You had no intentions of leaving either."

He shrugs in what, she thinks, is a mockery if her earlier shrug. "I can't exactly leave you here alone," he says, sounding oh-so-reasonable. "And I have to admit, I'm pretty sure that if I showed up back in Konoha without you, Tsunade would have my hide."

"She would," Sakura says happily. "Because she's awesome that way."

"Right," Kakashi's voice is deadpan. "So, really, I don't have a choice."

"There are always choices," Sakura points out. "Just because they're awful ones doesn't mean they aren't choices."

"Sakura," Kakashi says, "you're being ridiculous."

She laughs. "Maybe," she admits. "But it's better than the other options." Sakura wasn't sure what her other options were, except perhaps laughing and laughing until she couldn't stop or bursting into tears or just taking a nap and hoping it all made more sense when she woke up.

While the last one sounds appealing, she knows a nap isn't happening. She's too energetic, too wide-awake.

"He said we might have to get past the dragon," Sakura offers, as a reasonable compromise on a conversational topic that is neither ridiculous nor brooding. "If the Carapace is here. Any ideas on how?"

Kakashi caps the canteen, having taken a drink while her attention had been elsewhere and hands it back to her. "A few," he says contemplatively. "The easiest way would be to ask the wolf to serve as bait to draw the dragon away from the village while we slip in from a different direction. Anything that minimizes our odds of coming up against the dragon is a good thing. Chakra and our weapons don't hurt it but it can hurt us."

Sakura has to agree with that. Their one encounter with it sticks in her mind as possibly the most useless she's ever been in a fight and considering how little she'd been able to do way back when she'd been a poorly trained Genin with less motivation, she knows that's pathetic.

"I don't know if he'll agree to it," she says, "though I suppose either of us could play bait too. The dragon doesn't move that fast."

"For the most part, that's true," Kakashi concedes. "Though it breathed on me fast enough that I couldn't get out of the way."

"Point." Sakura winces. "That is a problem. You're still faster than I am." Which irritates her if she thinks too much about it and so she doesn't. "I guess we'll have to see what the wolf says," she decides. "If the Carapace isn't here then we'll just be able to go around the dragon and continue on."

Which, she thinks, would be the best for all of them.

Which probably means the Carapace will be in the village, she knows, and resents the odds.

"You think that's likely?" Kakashi is openly skeptical.

"No," Sakura says, "but I can hope, can't I? There's no one stopping me from doing that."

_::From doing what?::_

She jumps a little as the wolf lands on the ground in front of them. "Oh," she says, fumbling a little. "Hoping that we don't have to face the dragon again."

The wolf's amusement is a palpable thing.

Sakura sighs and hangs her head. She knows what that means. "No dice, huh?"

Kakashi looks resigned. "We're going to have to face the dragon again, aren't we?"

_::Yes.::_

"Do we have a plan for this?" Kakashi asks. "Or is it just 'get our asses kicked again'?"

"I'd like to avoid the second option," Sakura says helpfully. "If at all possible."

The wolf looks at the both of them. _::Don't worry,:_ he says, _::I have a plan.::_

"I have never found that to be a reassuring sentence," Kakashi informs them both. "In fact, that makes me think there will be a million things that can go wrong."

Sakura smothers a laugh.

_::Impertinent whelp.::_ The wolf lashes his tail. _::I know what I'm doing.::_

Kakashi's grin, when Sakura glances at him, is reckless even though the facemask. He's enjoying this too, she thinks, and wonders if they've both taken leave of their senses. "Of course you do," Kakashi says, "which is why the dragon won the first round."

_::Both of you are giving me a headache.::_

"Join the club," Kakashi says easily. "Tell us how you think we're going to win round two. You are planning for us to win, right?"


	3. Coerced

Title: The Scarlet Carapace  
>Chapter 03: Coerced<br>Rating: T  
>Words: 4,002<br>Summary: "Our client is a ghost wolf," Sakura says. "He's a dispossessed king who wants our help to regain his throne." Mission-fic. Kakashi, Sakura.  
>Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, or any characters from it.<br>Notes: Written for the Kakasaku Community's Give Me Some Sugar chat on the DW branch. Oroburos69's prompt was: "A wolf, a ninja, and a medic walk into a bar…" This is part 3 of 4.

* * *

><p>"This isn't a plan," Kakashi says. "This is a travesty masquerading as a plan." He's silent for a moment, looking down at himself, and then adds: "In drag."<p>

Privately, Sakura agrees, but she's too busy giggling to say anything. It shouldn't be nearly as funny but it really is because how many people could say, ever, that they've the privilege of seeing the famous Copy-nin in a billowing floral dress that was tied in the back with a blue ribbon? It has _ruffles_. And puffy sleeves!

"Don't be like that," she says, swallowing more giggles. They're entirely inappropriate and yet she can't help it. The stress. It must be the stress of the mission. Sakura's going to pretend they are, anyway, so she can lie with a straight face if Kakashi asks her. "I think you look very fetching."

Kakashi shoots her a disgusted look and shakes out his long, blonde locks of hair. It's a wig and the wolf magicked it up from somewhere and it doesn't go with his hitae-ite at all.

None of the outfit does, to be honest. Which makes the outfit, as far as Sakura is concerned, that much better. She wishes she had a camera.

_::This will work,::_ the wolf says. He's been wisely staying out of most of the discussion since Kakashi has found out what he's going to be wearing. _::We need to keep you from being recognizable. You were hit with Nightmare Breath once. You will not survive another round of it.::_

Kakashi fixes an unfriendly eye on the wolf, who is lounging on the ground. "I'm stronger than you're assuming."

The wolf's tongue lolls out. _::I mean no offense. You're human and therefore inherently fragile.::_

"As a human," Sakura says, "I'm not sure how to feel about that opinion. Can we get another one?"

She interrupts because whatever Kakashi looks like he wants to say is going to be a lot harsher than anything she's thinking. And, well, she really isn't too impressed with the idea that humans are inherently more fragile.

Though she can't argue with the fact that neither of them have figured out how to even touch the wolf yet and they'd gotten their asses thoroughly handed to them three days ago by an insubstantial dragon.

Maybe the wolf had a point, she concedes. Not that she's going to admit anything like that while Kakashi is glowering in a frilly, froofy dress. Sakura fiddles with her cap, her pink hair tucked up under it, and is glad that she gets to pretend to be a boy rather than being in Kakashi's shoes. Even though it does mean her breasts have been bound and while that's not as uncomfortable as it could be, she can't say it's fun either.

_::If you'd like.::_The wolf sounds resigned, like he knows what's coming.

"Oh good," she says, giving the wolf a dazzling smile. "Then my opinion is that we're not nearly all that fragile as you think we are."

The wolf lurches to his feet. _::Your wills aren't, perhaps,::_ he says grudgingly. _::But your sanity-I would be careful nonetheless. Most of my kingdom could not withstand two occurrences of Nightmare Breath, especially not so close together.::_

Sakura glares at Kakashi.

He holds up his hands in surrender. "I'll be careful," Kakashi says. "Though I still don't really see why I have to dress as a woman to get past the dragon."

"I wouldn't mind knowing either," Sakura says helpfully, because the wolf has proven to be more inclined to answer her than Kakashi for whatever reason. "I mean, I don't have a problem with dressing like a boy but-why?"

_::The Guardian does not have the best vision,::_ the wolf says, _::but she would remember a tall white-haired man and a shorter pink-haired woman easily enough. So we must change your party's composition enough that you cannot fall into a group that roughly approximates what you looked like.::_

Sakura exchanges a glance with Kakashi. "So if we just dyed our hair, we'd still get munched?" she asks.

The wolf nods.

"Well," Sakura says brightly, "then I really have absolutely no problems with dressing as a boy. What about you, Kakashi?"

He still doesn't look happy and she can't really blame him. "I understand the reasoning," he says reluctantly. "Though this dress is truly hideous. Can't I have something more tasteful?"

_::You need to be instantly recognizable as something different than you were,::_ the wolf points out with impeccable logic. _::The floral pattern stays.::_

"Fabulous," Kakashi mutters sarcastically.

"Look on the bright side," Sakura says, "at least you can still wear your normal clothes under your dress. It could be worse. He could have put you in a mini-skirt."

"I am thankful for small mercies," Kakashi deadpans, giving her a dirty look. "We're going to be having a talk after this about proper respect for your superiors, Sakura."

She shrugs. "You have more experience than I do," she says agreeably, "but you're not technically my superior."

_::You two never stop squabbling, do you?::_

"You're a fine one to talk," Sakura says as Kakashi mutters something under his breath that she's pretty sure she doesn't want to hear anyway. "You override us and order us about like we're your minions and argue with us until you get your way in every case. I still think we could slink in without all this fuss and bother with the clothing. It can't recognize us if it doesn't get the chance to see us at all."

_::Your plan would fail,::_the wolf replies with great finality in his voice. It leaves her a bit shaken, to be honest, even though she's gotten used to most other tones of voice from him.

"Yeah, well, it might be worth the risk," she murmurs. "Are you sure you're going to be able to disguise yourself well enough to enter the village as our dog?"

She didn't even try to keep the skepticism out of her voice as she covertly watches Kakashi adjust his fake breasts and look horrified at having them. This would be easier, she thinks, if either of them knew Naruto's juvenile jutsu, Sexy no Jutsu, but they don't and so they've made due.

This is funnier, she admits, which is a bit of a bonus though she's careful not to say that to Kakashi. Or even where Kakashi might have the chance of hearing. She's not that reckless with her life, thank you very much.

_::I will manage.::_

Sakura thinks about asking for more details-because Kakashi is right, she can't really say that's enough information to consider it a plan-but the wolf is still speaking in the snarly, forbidding tone and she's pretty sure that asking will be like inviting him to snap at her.

She'd really rather he didn't, so she keeps her mouth shut. If he gets annoyed at her thoughts, well, that's his problem. She can't help thinking.

"Can I ask another question?" Wait... "Besides asking if I can, I mean, because that counts as a question too if you want to get technical and-"

_::Ask.::_

"Well," she says carefully, "I'm just wondering, what do the normal people who live in the village see when the dragon comes out to play? Do they see anything? Or nothing? Or something in between?"

On the other side of the fire, Kakashi stops fussing with his dress and looks up curiously. "That _is_a good question," he says, leaning forward. "What's the answer?"

The wolf turns his head to stare in the direction of the village. They can't see it from where they are, carefully hidden behind trees and distance, so that the dragon can't spot them and come after them, but for the first time Sakura wonders if the wolf can still see the village.

She wonders what he thinks of all of this. Despite the fact that they're working for him, he shares very little of his thoughts and opinions about anything. Does he think their little human villages are sorry sights? She supposes they might be, if everything in his kingdom is grander and untouchable compared to their world.

_It doesn't matter,_ she decides, after mulling over it a few seconds longer while the wolf continues avoiding their question. Well, her question. _It doesn't matter because this is our world and this is the only one we can live in._

And, well, personally she thinks it is a pretty fine world. There are ugly things in it, of course, but there's also a lot of beauty and Sakura doubts that the beauty would remain if there wasn't also the ugly to contrast and compare it to.

_::It depends on the Guardian,::_ the wolf says. _::Some of them are more circumspect than others.::_

"So it could be anything?" Kakashi asks dubiously. "That does not seem like a useful thing for us."

The wolf's tail lashes irritably. _::Gauging from the lack of panic and people fleeing, not to mention that they continue to go about their lives as if there is nothing out of the ordinary, I would guess that this Guardian has chosen to be prudent and mask it's presence as a snow storm. So that when it rises, the locals merely assume it's the weather acting up.::_

"That's not so bad," Sakura comments. "People won't think it's that odd either, if others still are out in the weather. Everyone's had to be outside in shitty weather at some point or another-sometimes business just doesn't wait."

_::That is my hope,::_ the wolf agrees. _::If that is indeed the case, then we will cause little interest as we pass through the village.::_

"I don't like relying on hope," Kakashi grumbles. "It seems like an excellent way to get ourselves killed."

Sakura can't really argue with that, so she settles for crossing her arms over her flattened chest. "Do you have a better idea that we can all agree on?"

"We don't have an idea we can all agree on in the first place," he points out. "So it really doesn't matter if I do or not."

"But do you?" she presses. "Because, if so, I wouldn't mind hearing it." Er. Sakura glances at the wolf. "No offense," she adds, "but Kakashi's been planning covert operations for most of his life."

_::No offense taken.::_

She thinks that the wolf sounds a lot like he's a grandfather indulging his grandkids and that's sort of irksome. Not that she's going to tell the wolf that.

"So," Sakura repeats, "_do _you have a better idea?"

Kakashi grimaces and starts to talk. She settles in, leaning forward, with her elbows propped on her knees. Their tiny campfire crackles merrily as she frowns and listens.

She can't hear Kakashi. And the world is slowly going into a spinning sort of darkness that usually precludes sleep.

Sakura wants to tell herself that this is entirely the wrong time to be thinking and, also, she wasn't even remotely tired approximately three seconds ago so what gives, but she doesn't have the chance.

Between one blink and the next, she tumbles into sleep.

* * *

><p>When she wakes up, she knows she's inside a dream. Lucid dreaming. But why had she fallen asleep? The last thing she remembers is Kakashi beginning to outline his modifications to the wolf's plan and then… then… she's found herself here.<p>

And she's not even sure where 'here' is.

Which, Sakura supposes, is all well and good enough for a dream. Dreams don't have to make sense. She kneels down and picks up a bit of snow-that's tinted a very pale blue, like the hottest fire or the coldest ice-and it crumbles in her hand, feeling more like sand than snow. It doesn't melt.

Her green eyes narrow as she picks up another handful, still carefully, and scrutinizes the area. She's near a cliff-side and that's worrisome. She's not particularly superstitious but even she's heard of the one where if you die in your dreams, you die in real life.

(Sakura is glad that she never remembers her dreams usually. She suspects she would be dead several times over, at the very least, if she could.)

The ledge, and it is a ledge she discovers as she looks up and sees a mountain stretching on and on above her, looming the way mountains do with the blue not-quite-snow covering it, is only a few feet wide. Maybe a meter and a half, tops. The sky is a deep pink, like a particularly spectacular sunrise or sunset only she has the weirdest feeling that this sky is always this colour and doesn't change. Overhead, the sun beats down on her and even the sun is a different shade of yellow than the sun she's used to.

Sakura carefully stands-more carefully than she knelt, that's for certain, as now she's aware of where she's standing-and makes her way to the edge of the ledge she's on and peers down.

Hundreds of thousands of trees are spread out far, far below her. Her lips twitch as she realizes that most of the trees aren't the ones she's used to. These have different leaves-some spiny, some faceted, some that look more like _feelers _than anything else. Their colours are wrong too. Even with their dusting of blue-snow, she can tell that some of the trees are as pink as her hair and others are deep, jewel-tone purple and reds and yet more are green, like a crayon, which would be fine if was the leaves, but this is the bark and so that's out of the ordinary.

What sort of a dream world is this? Sakura wonders, leaning over to glance straight down and confirm that, yes, the ledge she's on drops off to a sheer cliff face and that while she could use chakra to cling to the wall...

Sakura stumbles backwards, pressing up against the rock wall on her ledge, and then looks up thoughtfully at it. She doesn't know if she can cling to the rock here. It would be ridiculous of her to try that out while dangling over the ledge where she might fall to her death.

But trying it here, where she can easily just let go and land on the ledge that, so far, seems to be relatively stable... Sakura concentrates her chakra to her palms before she can come up with a scenario where this would be a bad idea and places them on the wall.

Attempting to hoist herself up only winds up with her narrowly missing smashing her face against the rock. Her hands slide, slick and slippery, like they've been coated in oil and she purses her lips, biting back swear words that she's picked up from Tsunade-shishou.

"What's the point of this if I can't _do_ anything?" Sakura demands and makes her way back to the edge of the ledge. If she was more daring, more foolish, more like Naruto, she would consider throwing herself off. Since she's not, and that seems like a horrible plan, she contents herself with just studying the trees with a dubious look. "There's got to be more to this dream than this. Am I supposed to perish from _boredom_?"

Why is she dreaming this?

_::Because I want you to,::_ the wolf says, appearing on her ledge between one heartbeat and the next. _::Welcome to my world.::_

Sakura stumbles in shock and manages to catch herself before she gets close to falling. "Don't _do_ that!" she yelps. "And your world?" Horrified realization dawns. "Don't tell me that I _died _and-"

The wolf sighs, resting his head on huge paws, and fixes her with a look that's so much like Ino at her most unamused that Sakura falls silent. _::You're not dead,::_ the wolf says. It would be reassuring if really believe him, Sakura thought, but he was making that hard right now after trapping her up on a ledge of nothing in a dream. _::In fact, most of you is listening to Hatake's modifications to my plan right now.::_

"Um," Sakura says, "then why aren't I with the rest of me?"

It unsettles her on some level that she has to ask that. It's just so _ridiculous_.

_::I thought you might like to see this.::_ The wolf lifts his head, which she's disgruntled to notice, is still sorta see-through and insubstantial. _::This is the home I want to go back to.::_

"It's very... different," Sakura says, striving to be diplomatic even if it kills her. "No cities though? How can you be king without a throne and a crown?"

The wolf's tongue lolls out and she has the weirdest feeling that he's laughing at her, which is borne out by the skin-ruffling feeling of fur brushing against her mind. _::What would I do with a crown? I have no hands to place it on my head.::_ He shakes his head, fur flying. _::My kingdom cannot be ruled from a throne room, Sakura. It must be ruled by the wild.::_

Sakura glances at him dubiously. "Okay," she says. "I guess that makes sense, especially if most of your people are, well, not human at all-"

_::Correct.::_

"-but why am I here again? Just because you wanted me to? On a whim? Are you sure I'm not dead or dying and this is some sort of illusion." Sakura considers this. "Though I suppose if you're an illusion, then I can't really trust the answers you might give me."

_::You're not dead.::_

"I'll try to believe that," she says.

_::As for the rest,::_ the wolf says, shifting so that his tail is curled around his body. _::It's easier for me to do this here.::_

Sakura backs up. Carefully. She's hugely aware of the end of the ledge occurring just inches from where she's standing. "Do what?"

Again, there's that fur-ruffling feeling against her mind. He's laughing. She's definitely not. It's bad enough that she's been forced across the country, missing the mission she was supposed to be on, and-

Sakura gasps. "I _care _about the horrible decisions I've been making!"

For the first time in the week that they've been with the wolf, her thoughts tumble over and over each other coming to ugly conclusions without ever being suppressed or redirected or shrugged away. It's liberating and it's scary to look back on the time when she's been, clearly, under mind control without realizing it, and think about how easily she'd been taken over.

She remembers the endless cycle of concerns and the way she's just been shrugging them off. It's horrible.

Like when they'd fought the dragon, there had been nothing to fight against, and Sakura backs up a little more. "You _did _mess with my mind!" she accuses.

_::Sakura,::_ the wolf says patiently, _::I blackmailed you into this mission by taking Hatake's mind and using him against you. Why on earth would I have stopped there? I need you and the man to do this for me. I made the executive decision to not give you a real choice while leaving you enough free will to think you were making real choices.::_

It's dreadful, she thinks, how much that sounds like what some of the Yamanaka can do. Sakura has deliberately never asked Ino if she can tweak minds and opinions in any way. It's bad enough that her best friend can take over other peoples' bodies and dominate them in the heat of battle.

This insidious takeover is, Sakura feels, far worse. She feels dirty. Violated.

"Why are you telling me this now?" Sakura asks. "When I wake up, Kakashi and I will just leave you or die in the trying."

_::The man does what I tell him to do,::_ the wolf says placidly. _::He fell under my control far more readily than you-he has made a lifetime out of not dealing with his trauma and a foundation built on lies is the easiest to take over.::_

The worst part is, the worst part is that Sakura cannot argue with that. She's often wondered what Kakashi would be like if he actually got help and talked to someone about the fact that he'd lost most of those who were important to him. She's never asked.

It's just not done. It's beyond rude and, well, truth to tell, there'd been a number of years where Sakura had felt that Kakashi had deserved his pain thanks to the pain his bitterly awful teaching had caused her.

She tilts her head up. "He won't hurt me," Sakura says, because she wants to believe that.

_::He doesn't have to. He's leverage against you.::_

That true too. It was truth even back when he'd first been taken under control by the wolf, back when going to go and sit on the moon had been the weirdest thing about this whole scenario.

_::Will you leave him behind?::_ The wolf's eyes seem to burn into hers. Sakura looks away. _::I am giving you a choice, Sakura. Will you stay or will you go?::_

"If I go," she says, "you're still going to keep Kakashi and use him aren't you?"

_::Yes.::_

"If I stay," she continues, "will I get Kakashi back at the end of it?"

_::Assuming you both manage to survive... yes.::_

Sakura plants her hands on her hips and glares at the wolf. "Then what was the point of bringing me here and letting me know what you've been doing to me?"

_::I wanted to,::_ the wolf says, like that's reason enough. For a King, she thinks, that might be. Even if it's a King-in-Exile. _::And because it's better to do this sort of thing with as much free will as possible.::_

She raises both eyebrows. "Excuse me?" Sakura narrowly resists the urge to wave one hand at him with indignation. He might bite it off. "Free will? What free will? You've taken away my options!"

_::You still have a choice,::_ the wolf points out. _::Just because the choices are bad doesn't mean they aren't choices. Didn't you say that to Hatake earlier? Don't you believe that, or was it merely a gambit to keep your spirits up?::_

"I don't like you very much," she snaps. "For all I know, you planted those words in me to say at that point just so you could twist them around on me now!"

The wolf just looks at her. _::I am giving you a choice now.::_

Her eyes narrow. "Are you giving Kakashi the same choice?"

_::No.::_

"And why not?" Sakura asks. "He's the more senior partner of this operation compared to me."

_::Unwisely, perhaps, I find myself amused by you.::_ The wolf's tail lashes irritably. _::Otherwise you would not have been given this choice either. Decide. My limited patience is waning and there's a convenient cliff to toss you off.::_

"There's only one choice I can make," she says, disgruntled. "I'll help."

_::Now was that so hard? Wake up and join the rest of yourself, Sakura.::_With a noise that sounds almost like a laugh, the wolf shakes his head and she's falling… falling…

And listening to Kakashi talk. "Any questions?" he asks, apparently finished outlining his plan and unaware of anything out of the ordinary having happened. "Objections?"

Sakura opens her mouth to ask what the plan even _is _when she realizes that, somehow, she knows what he'd been saying.

She knows the plan.

Sakura gives the wolf a dirty look instead, which the wolf ignores. "No questions from this corner," she grits out.


	4. Freed

Title: The Scarlet Carapace  
>Chapter 04: Freed<br>Rating: T  
>Words: 4,377<br>Summary: "Our client is a ghost wolf," Sakura says. "He's a dispossessed king who wants our help to regain his throne." Mission-fic. Kakashi, Sakura.  
>Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, or any characters from it.<br>Notes: Written for the Kakasaku Community's Give Me Some Sugar chat on the DW branch. Oroburos69's prompt was: "A wolf, a ninja, and a medic walk into a bar…" This is part 4 of 4. 

* * *

><p>Kakashi's plan is elegant in its simplicity, Sakura admits. He's taken the cross-dressing (though he'd removed the bows from his person) and then taken it a bit further and had them split up. There is even less chance of them being recognized if they aren't together. To confuse the issue more, they would enter the village from different directions, both of them with their chakra suppressed and the wolf doing whatever he needed to do to hide.<p>

The wolf hadn't liked it but, Sakura finds herself supremely uncaring of how the wolf felt. The wolf didn't like much if he hadn't been the one to think about it.

She supposes that was because, as royalty, he was used to being the one in control. Quite literally. Sakura is certain he's the evil king and if he isn't, she pities the citizens of the dream world right now. What could be worse?

In any case, because it was the plan, she's strolled into town nonchalantly, all by herself, just like Kakashi had told her, as if she was just a simple traveller looking for work-her travel-worn disguise helping with that-and slowly made her way through the village.

The village makes her skin crawl.

The town is creepy, Sakura decides, and it's mostly creepy because it's so ordinary that it might as well have 'hi, we're normal' stamped on the walls and hanging on signs around the citizen's necks. It's too ordinary, she tells herself, and tries to decide if that's just her mood or if it's actually a feeling she should pay attention to. It's sad, she thinks, that she can't decide either way. It's a measure of everything that's happened in the last week and change.

She tugs at her cap and tries not to look for Kakashi and wonders if he's still wearing his dress. Sakura suspects that he ditched it as soon as he could and wonders if she ought to do the same. It's a bit hot to be wearing two outfits, even though it's cold outside, and Sakura mulls over that, because it's a stupid and inconsequential thing to muse about and that's preferable to thinking about anything important at the moment when all she wants to do is just slink out of the village and pretend the whole mission was a failure.

But there's no way it would be, she sighs to herself, because if they fail here, the wolf would just drag them to the next village (if they convinced him that the carapace wasn't here) or he'd make them search again.

Tyranny, she thinks. How fitting for a ghost wolf king who needs to regain his throne. Not for the first time, she wonders just how he lost it. It's just as likely that the people who took it from him were the good ones.

That's troubling, she concedes, walking past a bar with a longing glance, because she doesn't want to have them be responsible for placing an entire kingdom in danger due to the fact that they're helping to place the king back on his throne.

But, as the wolf has proven, he doesn't care about their choices and has no problems taking away their ability to choose until they pick what he feels is the right option.

Sakura knows that, if she really wants to, she can just keep walking and leave the village while the wolf is on the other side of it and make her escape that way. She might even get a good head start-enough that she could get home.

But that would leave Kakashi up the creek without a paddle and she's loathe to do that-which is also a choice.

Sakura contemplates that.

Staying is probably the best choice, if only because she wouldn't put it past the wolf to come after her, take her mind from her, and never give it back. And what would happen to Kakashi is that scenario?

It matters, but there's nothing she can do about it right here and now, so close to the carapace that the wolf has sent her and Kakashi on ahead without sticking close to them, and giving up now would help no one, not even herself.

And she's a kunoichi, a Jounin, of Konoha. She can't give up now.

Sakura forces herself to pick up her pace, keeping it to a fast walk, that's not too out of place with the locals, and extends her senses. Even though she's in Tsukuba, all she can feel are the civilian signatures. Over in the west she can vaguely sense Kakashi, only because she's familiar with his signature, and she smiles slightly as she damps her chakra down further.

They don't know if the dragon can feel it but it's best not to take chances. Even through, she grumbles to herself, this is one big gamble.

Sakura pauses, kneeling down as if to get a rock out of her shoe, as she thinks about that. Maybe they're going about this the wrong way. Instead of being systematic about it, she thinks, where would she place something that would be the last spot someone would look because it was too obvious? What if the Guardian was gambling on that?

She gazes around the village, tilting her head up to spot the taller buildings. The watch towers, she thinks, and guesses those are what the dragon is curled around.

Which would mean...

She spots the tall roof of a building that has to be the temple.

They've been idiots, she thinks. Where else would a symbol of power, even if it's a living symbol, be other than a place where people go to worship symbols of power and faith?

She gauges how far she is from the temple and compares it to what she knows of Kakashi's location. She'll get there before he will. That's something that's small but pleasing at the same time.

Sakura gets moving. 

* * *

><p>The temple is imposing and bulkier than similar temples closer to Konoha. She supposes that it's because this temple is in a colder clime and so it needs to be proof against the cold. That's nicely logical, so Sakura approves.<p>

She is perched up on a roof of a nearby shop, cloaked in genjutsu, a very mild-powered one, and studies the temple curiously. There's no way, she thinks, for her to get blueprints of the place.

She has no idea if there's enemies inside, especially if there's anything like the dragon which she still doesn't think there's a way to beat. Running headlong into that would be bad.

At the same time, Sakura is pretty sure that headlong is the only way this is going to be solved. She's close enough to the temple now that she can feel... something. It makes her bones ache, though logic tells her that might just be the cold, and she feels almost feverish despite not being so.

There's _something_ in the temple.

But is it the carapace or something else? She doesn't want to get the attention of anything supernatural that she doesn't have to. Not after the week she's had. No way in hell.

She sighs. Of course, now that she's come this far, it's 'yes way in hell' despite her own feelings.

And the fact that 'no way in hell' sounds way snappier. 

* * *

><p>Getting inside the temple is child's play, which is disturbing. She's pretty sure there ought to be more security hereabouts but if there is, she can't find it. Sakura knows that the awful, thrumming power that she feels has to be the carapace's owner (unless it's a guard but she's pretending that's not a possibility—or another creepy supernatural, which she's also nothing thinking about) and she flattens her chakra down even more, just in case, and slinks through ornate-for-the-area hallways and studies doors and statues that have been coated with gold gilt at some point. It's peeling off, slowly, and it looks sad up close for all that it had looked grand enough from a distance.<p>

There's not a single person in the building.

It makes the hair on the back of her neck rise and only the fact that she can feel Kakashi, like a whisper of silk against her chakra, for he's as subdued as she is, that gives her courage. She's a Jounin of Konoha, not a ghost hunter, and right here and now she thinks that the other profession would have better luck with... whatever is going on.

She nearly jumps out of her skin when a hand falls lightly on her shoulder.

"Easy," Kakashi murmurs as she tries to calm herself and convince herself that punching him because he'd startled her wouldn't be the best use of their situation.

"What do you think?" she asks, peering down the hallway that had so distracted her that he'd been able to slip up behind her.

The hallway looks like most of the others. Hard wood floors, torches in sconces, and at the far end, a gilded-gold door.

But power creeps down the hallway, like a shiver, like a ruffled cloak reaching out to strangle her, and Sakura shivers as Kakashi peers down the hallway himself. Whatever the power is, it isn't chakra. That bothers her. What sort of energy was there that wasn't chakra?

Plenty, she thinks, but that's not the point. There's not many power sources that something alive, biologically, can use.

Kakashi looks grim. "There's no other way into the room," he says, "short of breaking through a wall. I checked before coming here."

"The door would be better," Sakura says, "if only so we can use the walls as an escape route."

Kakashi's eye crinkles with amusement as he studies the door and her in equal measure. "Now, now," he says, "we're not supposed to cause mass property damage here."

Reluctantly, Sakura finds herself grinning, just a little. "One wall doesn't count as a great deal of damage," she points out. "Depending on the circumstances, that wouldn't even qualify for an insurance claim due to acts of ninja."

Well, it _wouldn't_.

Kakashi's laugh is warm and low. "Point," he agrees. "Still, try not to do too much damage. The villagers don't know anything is going on. Let's leave them in the dark."

"Got it," she says, tightening her gloves. "You ready?"

"Let's knock," Kakashi says and while she gapes at his back he saunters down the hallway and opens the door without ceremony. Without even a knock and she promises herself that she's going to strangle him when they get out of this because, just, seriously what a jerk.

She's after him in a flash as he slips into the room and heads right. She does the same but heads left, one of them on each side of the door. The light in the room is dim and scarlet and it takes her eyes a second to focus.

When she's able to scan the room, part of her wishes she wasn't able to do so. It reeks and it's the reek of old, dead flesh and dried blood. There's no bodies in the room, thank goodness, but she can tell that at one point, there had been.

There's a pedestal at the end of the room, as wide as her arms can reach around, and coming as tall as her shoulders. On the pedestal is...

A monster, she thinks, staring at it. One with a scarlet carapace. Sakura tries to figure out if it's foamy, drooling mouth full of spindly pincers is the most disgusting part of it or the fact that it's too big for the pedestal it rests on and it's many, many legs click and clatter against the sides of the pedestal as they dangle there, twitching, is worse. It has eyestalks (she counts three) and there's a putrid ooze sliding from the carapace. It's chewing on something that looks suspiciously like an arm and Sakura decides she's not going to look at that any further.

Oh god, she thinks, that's disgusting.

On the bright side, she thinks immediately after, she's got no problems killing this. It would be helping humanity to get rid of something so gross.

Though it's worrisome the fact that pure power is pounding against her senses as she stands there. Not chakra, but power made tangible nonetheless. Sakura narrows her eyes.

Kakashi shifts and the... thing... notices them.

The energy in the room turns abruptly, turning suffocating and heavy and she feels like they're going to die just standing where they are when the wolf steps through the door.

His skin glows like pale moonlight and his power is a paltry thing in the face of the monster but it's enough shake her out of her horrified reverie. From the way that Kakashi's feet move (all she can see of him with the wolf in her way) he's doing the same thing as she is.

"So," Sakura says, trying to inject confidence into her voice with limited success. "We kill it?"

"I like that plan," Kakashi says. "Greatly."

_::Agreed.::_

The monster, however, doesn't seem to agree with them about what makes this plan so good. (Funny that, when they are talking about its demise.) The eyestalks swing around to peer at them, at the situation, and then, before Sakura can move, before Kakashi can move, it flings itself up and through the ceiling.

_::After it!::_

Kakashi is the first out the hole in the ceiling, but she is right on his heels, the wolf on hers. They can see the monster scuttling faster than it should have been able to over the rooftops of the village and making for the mountains.

They follow.

"Shouldn't you be distracting the dragon?" Sakura asks as they race after the monster.

_::I've sent it home,::_ the wolf says. _::Much easier than fighting it, but I needed to make a few preparations that I hadn't had the time to do last time we faced it.::_

"...Does that mean you've dropped that horrid thing in the middle of another innocent village?" Evil king, Sakura thinks, definitely.

_::Stop that,::_ the wolf says. _::Don't you know better by now? The dragon's normal habitat is far from civilization. I sent it to where it had lived before.::_

Sakura nods, knowing that there's no way for her to prove it and so being forced to accept it at face-value. Besides, all things considered, even if he is an evil king, Sakura knows she's going to finish helping him. She doesn't have a choice. "Do you know," she asks, "how we're supposed to kill that thing?"

Kakashi is listening too, she can tell by the way the set of his shoulders changes. "Does it have weaknesses?" Kakashi asks.

Weaknesses would be helpful!

_::Every living thing has weaknesses,::_ the wolf scoffs, _::as do most unliving things as well.::_

"Okay," Sakura says as they leave the village behind them. The scarlet shell of the monster making it easy to see where it is scuttling ahead of them. They're gaining on it. "But what are the weaknesses, please?"

Kakashi shakes his head and she suspects that he's hiding a smile. She resists the urge to tell him that he's hiding it poorly.

The wolf is silent for a moment as they scramble over rocks and dodge trees and make their way higher and higher up the mountain. Sakura can feel the exertions in her body, not enough to make her tired, not hardly, but enough to know that this is the sort of trip that a civilian wouldn't ever dare to talk at this sort of pace.

_::Aim for the stomach,::_ he says, _::and the eyes are fragile too. Under no circumstances damage the actual carapace.::_

"Because you need it?" Kakashi tosses back over his shoulder. "Or because it would end in horrible, dreadful agony for us?"

_::Both. But the second one is something that would likely have a more immediate impact on yourselves so pay more attention to that, if you wish.::_

"Gee, thanks," Sakura says sarcastically. 

* * *

><p>The amount of time it takes them to corner the stupid thing is ridiculous, Sakura thinks, that she could have spent doing about a million more useful things and that's really not fair. So, as revenge, she refuses to dwell on it. Instead she palms a kunai and casts a sidelong glance at Kakashi who is looking as dubious as he ever does. "Ready?" she asks him. "Aim for the weak spots."<p>

And try not to think about how gross the thing is.

Kakashi's eye curves, like he's guessing what she's thinking, and she figures he's probably got her nailed pretty much. "Ready," he echoes. "Let's go."

It might have been the sort of fight that epic poetry was written about but, in all honesty, what Sakura remembers most about it is the way everything reeks and how the monster turns out to be intelligent and defensive of the weak points the wolf had pointed out how it could _blow fire_.

(She has to stop at one point, to heal her arm, while the wolf covers for her. At another point, she has to stop to heal Kakashi, whose face caught on fire.)

In the end, what takes down the monster is attributed more to luck than to skill in Sakura's mind and tired and weary, she stands over the monster as it begins dissolving, leaving nothing but its carapace and copious amounts of... well... goo.

"Um," Sakura says, looking at the carapace and inwardly cringing. "Do I seriously have to pick it up?"

"Am I going to have repeat that talk about creepy crawlies we had back when you were twelve?" Kakashi calls, from where he's clambered up to keep a look out.

She can't help but resentfully notice that he's made sure that there's no way he'll have to be the one to pick it up.

The wolf looks sheepish. _::I cannot,::_ he says, _::as I lack the necessary appendages in order to do so.::_

The carapace is, well, scarlet. It's also half her size, quite literally, and is oozing pink... _goo_ and long, thin filaments that are clear and seem to twitch as they slip away from the carapace. She cringes.

It doesn't look remotely powerful.

It just looks gross.

"So," she says, aiming to sound conversational and not really caring when her tone comes out a little south of that goal, "why aren't you ready to go yet?" She pauses and contemplates that. "Don't tell me you've got another goal for us?"

"What?" Kakashi's horrified yelp is perhaps the least macho she's ever heard from him, but it's comforting that he feels the same way. He comes tumbling down the mountain side. "We're doing _what_?"

He looks at her like she's agreed to do something stupid again. Sakura makes a face back at him.

"I didn't agree to anything," Sakura tells him loftily and, in order to maybe hurry this along so that the wolf will let them go sooner, she steels herself, wishes her gloves were proper ones that covered her fingers entirely, and picks up the carapace.

It's as gross as she's feared and Sakura swallows hard as _stuff_ plops to the ground with sickening splats. _Big, tough ninja,_ she reminds herself. _You can do this!_

Which is ridiculous she thinks, because yes, she can do it, but that doesn't mean she's got to like it and most assuredly, she doesn't.

_::Just one more thing,::_ the wolf says, _::and I doubt you'll have problems with it.::_

"That's what you said about the white dragon," Kakashi points out.

_::It only took you two tries,::_ the wolf replies and Sakura hates that they're arguing about this when she's holding the most disgusting thing ever.

"I hate to interrupt," she says, though that's a total lie, "but what am I supposed to do with this?" Her tone makes it clear that if they don't give her an answer stat that she's going to take it to mean she can fling it at them.

She turns and Kakashi grimaces as he looks at the inner side of the carapace. Sakura refuses to look. She's pretty sure it's fleshy and disgusting and it's hard enough holding it without seeing precisely what her hands are touching. The wolf, in contrast, looks coolly unbothered.

But then, she grumbles, he was the one that saw things differently. He sees power in this thing. She... really didn't. The choking sense of power has died since the monster did.

_::Bring it here,::_ the wolf tells her. _::Then place it on my back.::_

"That's disgusting," Sakura says, even as she moves to obey him. It's tempting to ask him why he didn't just grab it himself but that's her temper speaking because, well, he doesn't have hands and so picking anything like this up would be difficult and grabbing it with his mouth wouldn't have left him able to stick it on his back. "Are you sure?"

His eyes, like the rest of him, are ghostly. For a moment, though, it feels like he's looming over them and then she blinks and he's just watching her like normal, if more than a touch of weary exasperation in his gaze. And voice. _::Yes, I'm sure. I need this in order to go home.::_

"It's still gross," she mutters and Kakashi murmurs an agreement with her.

_::That too.::_

It's the humour more than anything else in the wolf's voice that has her lifting the carapace up and carefully placing it on his back. Sakura lets it go and it sits there, making him look ridiculous, like he's a strange combination of wolf and bug and not suiting either of them, and then the carapace begins to glow.

She steps back, holding her hands up to shield herself and grimaces when she sees her hands are pink with goo and the clear filaments are clinging to her skin.

Kakashi has his hitae-ite pushed up so he can see what's going on, though she doesn't know what good it'll do when they haven't had a single break when it comes to there being chakra involved. None of this took chakra. It's sort of disgusting, she thinks, how useless they've felt because of that.

The carapace pulses and then pulses again and again in time, she thinks, with the wolf's heart. The wolf tilts his head back towards the sky and howls, sounding triumphant and powerful and more than a little scary.

Not that she'll admit that.

His entire body flickers, like he's stuck his paw into an electrical socket, which is a mental image she's never, would never, have thought about before today and then his shadowy, ghostly form begins to expand.

"That's it," Sakura says to Kakashi, who has come up behind her. "I'm going. There's a stream a mile back, right?"

He doesn't take his eyes from the wolf, but he nods.

"Excellent," she says, "I'm going to go clean myself up. When he's done... whatever it is he's doing, come and find me. I am so over this mission."

Kakashi nods and Sakura forms at quick seal and disappears in a swirl of leaves and smoke. 

* * *

><p>Kakashi watches and he waits and he thinks that maybe he should have gone and joined Sakura at the stream but it's almost fitting, somehow, that someone be here to witness the... rebirth, he supposes... of a king.<p>

Not that he blames Sakura for wanting to clean up.

The wolf ignores him and Kakashi leans against the rock walls and waits.

The wolf is taller now, twice his height, and before where he had been see-through and disturbing because of that, now Kakashi thinks he's more disturbing because he _isn't_ see through. He looks more regal, Kakashi supposes, though there's not a whole lot to dispute that when the wolf is so very oversized.

Then light flares and Kakashi is forced to close his eyes as even through his eyelids the world goes sharp-edged with red and white.

_::Where has Sakura gone?::_

Kakashi blinks and stares at the wolf who stares at him, their faces on the same level. "Gaah," he says, inching away from the face that's far too close to his for comfort. "She went to clean up. The carapace was..."

He shrugs.

_::All right,::_ the wolf says, _::come with me.::_

Kakashi's eyes narrow. "Why?"

_::Because I told you to.::_

It's tempting to argue but when the wolf turns and heads in the direction of the stream, Kakashi follows. He's gone this far, he thinks, there's no point in trying to get out of doing what the wolf wants now.

Or, well, trying to get out of it.

"What are we doing next?" Kakashi asks.

_::Sakura asked at the start what you would get out of helping me,::_ the wolf replies, _::and there's something I think that we all need before I begin to make my way home.::_

Kakashi raises an eyebrow. "What's that?" He can think of several things he needs, starting with a long nap and a bath and working his way up.

He still has no idea what they're going to tell Tsunade. Maybe the wolf will give them a good excuse.

_::I could come with you,::_ the wolf muses, _::and tell her what happened myself…::_

Kakashi laughs, the sound strained to his ears. "I think I can safely speak for both of us when I say that would be very much appreciated if you would." If nothing else, Kakashi thinks, it would prove they haven't gone mad.

_::I'll consider it.::_

"Okay," Kakashi says conversationally. "But what are we going to do now?"

_::Let Sakura finish her bath, head back to Tsukuba,::_ the wolf says, _::and then…::_

* * *

><p>A wolf, a ninja, and a medic walk into a bar…<p> 


End file.
